Fenwick’s recent Federal Circuit win on behalf of Lashify is a victory for all innovative American business, according to Intellectual Asset Management (IAM).
“It’s a great result for modern American businesses that are innovative but live with the reality of not having sufficient manufacturing in the U.S. and look to foreign help with that,” lead counsel Saina Shamilov told IAM in an article this week. “They can feel confident that they can be protected by the ITC.”
Lashify manufactures its patented eyelash-extension system outside the United States, and conducts design, development, sales, marketing, warehousing, operational, and other activities in the U.S. But when it brought a Section 337 complaint against infringing copycat products to the ITC, the federal agency denied Lashify protection by not counting certain Lashify’s significant U.S. investments and declaring that the company didn’t meet the economic “domestic industry” requirements.
Last week, the Federal Circuit sided with Lashify on appeal—finding that the ITC was wrong to discount those U.S.-based operations and has been getting it wrong for decades, according to IAM.
The ruling simplifies the domestic industry requirement process and opens the door of the ITC for American companies that cannot manufacture their products in the country because of insufficient manufacturing capabilities, IAM reported.
In August, Fenwick secured a $30.5 Million jury verdict for Lashify in separate but related patent-infringement litigation.